Of Slippery Slopes

Maybe I’m a bit pessimistic when it comes to governmental paternalism and the unrelenting erosion of civil liberties, but I’ve always assumed that someone or something — including the government — is tracking, or could track, everything I do in an increasing virtual reality.

This is not to say I believe that doing so is right or just or benefits a democracy as Americans imagine it. But a kind of Murphy’s Law ethos abides in me, convincing me that what can be done eventually will be done, for good or ill, because information is power and human beings bend toward power the way weeds bend toward the sun.

And power is just as blinding. Anything can be, and often is, justified in the glare of it. The threat of terrorism has become the broad rationale for the invasion of our privacy.

That’s why I wasn’t as surprised as many this week when it was revealed that the National Security Agency used secret warrants to get Verizon phone records and was, as The Washington Post put it, “tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading United States Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets.”

In the wake of the increasing digitizing of our lives — much of it with our consent — and with the overreactive national security hysteria that has followed the attacks of 9/11 (namely, the Patriot Act), this kind of thing seemed inevitable.

Image

Charles M. BlowCreditDamon Winter/The New York Times

Some of that hysteria has been quelled, although the law and law enforcement tactics it gave birth to are still in effect.

For instance, in January 2002 Gallup found that the percentage of people who said that “the government should take steps to prevent additional acts of terrorism but not if those steps would violate your basic civil liberties” (49 percent) was nearly the same as those who said that “the government should take all steps necessary to prevent additional acts of terrorism in the United States even if it means your basic civil liberties would be violated” (47 percent).

By 2011, only 25 percent of those polled were willing to have their civil liberties violated while 71 percent were not.

More recently, following the Boston bombings, there was bit of a relapse; a CNN/Time/ORC International survey found that 40 percent of respondents were willing to give up civil liberties to fight terrorism.

Still, people were more sensitive about the monitoring of cellphone activity and e-mails.

CNN’s polling director, Keating Holland, said this week that after 9/11, “54 percent of Americans favored expanded government monitoring of cellphones and e-mail. Now, the message is ‘hands off.’ ” He continued, “Only 38 percent said they favor expanding government monitoring of those forms of communication.”

And yet, that appears to be exactly what the government is doing.

Furthermore, the fact that this administration has continued or even expanded the practices began under the Bush administration is beyond unsettling and so far down the slippery slope that I can see the darkness of the valley.

Image

Look at it this way: this administration is taking unprecedented steps to make sure that the government’s secrets remain private while simultaneously invading the privacy of its citizens.

This is a “Papa knows best” approach to security policy.

We are told that this has helped to keep us safe, and that any loss of civil liberties and sense of privacy is but collateral damage, inconsequential in the grand sweep of things. Many innocents must be violated so that a few guilty people can be stopped. It’s a digital stop-and-frisk, using data trends and a few successes to do huge damage.

Even if you trust these “papas” — and I fully trust no politicians — what happens when they are replaced by new ones, ones you do not trust, ones with whom you do not agree?

That’s the problem: beyond the present potential for abuse, these policies establish a dangerous, bipartisan precedent — spanning all branches of government — that are easily misused.

Not only can power be blinding; it can be corruptive.

Imagine what damage the power to indiscriminately collect endless amounts of private data on innocent citizens could do in the hands of men and women of ill intent. The world is no stranger to that kind of abuse.

This is not a right-left thing. This is a right-wrong thing. This is not about short-term damage to political prospects but about long-term damage to democratic ideals. This is not about any particular person or president or party but about principles and limits.

This is one of those rare moments where the left edge and the right one can meet: this government overreach is a threat to liberty.